Archive for November, 2008
The Design Process
So, you’ve decided you need a website. Perhaps you already have one, but it looks like it was designed in the mid-90s by your 14 year old son in Microsoft Word and maybe it’s time for a fresh start. What happens next?
The following is a general guide to the series of steps that Radar Maker follow in order to quickly move a website from the idea stage to finished article.
1. Initial contact
The first thing to do is to contact Radar Maker via phone or email. Our consultant will get a basic overview of the website you’re looking for, discuss the budget, and set up a meeting. At this stage, it’s a good idea to email us any information on the website so we can be properly briefed before the meeting.
2. Meeting
In the meeting, we discuss your requirements and advise on the various options available to you. Remember, you don’t need any technical knowledge - that’s our job. We need to get a good idea of what the site is for, who the audience is and what it is required to do. We’ll discuss the style and layout, what artwork you have, and what different functionality you need. Once we have an idea of all this, we can estimate a cost and time-frame for completing the project, and you can decide whether you want to move forward with us.
3. Planning
We then go off and plan the website based on the initial meeting and your ongoing input. You may need time to decide on various options, and to rework some content before a final plan is reached.
4. The spec sheet
Once a plan is agreed upon, we will create a spec sheet for you to sign off on. The ‘spec’ is a contract of work that outlines the structure and functionality of the website with a budget and development timeframe.
5. Initial design
The next step is to send us digital copies of your logo as well as photographs and branding material that will help us in creating a design. We then create a mock-up design and send it to you for comment. Changes are made at this stage and a final design is signed off, so that development can commence.
6. Development
At this point we code the website and any additional functionality outlined in the spec. We’ll keep you updated on the site’s progress, and send screenshots as required.
7. Final testing
Depending on the scale of the website, it may be necessary to upload it on a test server so that you can test it and make sure it’s working as you need it to, before it goes live.
8. Completion
The website is uploaded and everyone’s happy. Radar Maker can now advise you on additional services including online advertising and Search Engine Optimisation, so that you can start directing that all-important traffic to your website.
9. Ongoing Support
Radar Maker offer a range of service agreements to suit your needs. CMS websites require manditory security updates and therefore require ongoing support. We can also provide regular content updates and make any design updates you need at a later date.
SEO Tips
The following are some general tips for improving your website’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
1. Make sure your website is designed and coded properly
Badly coded sites make it difficult for search engines to read and archive your site. It must be structured correctly and your code should be free from errors so that search engines can do their job.
2. Write plenty of original content
Search engines sort and rank pages based on content. Ideally, you need at least 300 words of original text per page. Merely copying and pasting from other sites, or loading several pages with the same content won’t help your ranking.
3. Make sure you use important keywords in your content
Use keywords in your text but remember to write for humans. At the end of the day, you are creating a website for customers, not search engines. Think about all the words that people would use to find your site, write these words down, and incorporate them into the body of your text.
4. Update your site regularly
Regularly updating your content will improve your ranking with search engines. This is an immediate advantage of having a Content Management System (CMS), allowing you to update the site’s content as often as you need.
5. Get inbound links
This is very important. Search engines such as Google assess a site’s ranking based partly on the number of high-traffic sites linked to it. Request a link exchange with business partners and other websites relating to your industry. There are some free directories that allow links and others that you’ll need to pay for. Choose carefully where you list your website though, and don’t get too many too quickly, or Google may penalise you.
6. Write articles.
Market your product or service by writing original articles and submitting them to online directories. Submitting articles can increase your search engine ranking and attract potential customers. Write about topics relating to your business. Pick out news items or latest trends and provide a viewpoint on them. This takes some time but it can be worth it. Radar Maker can assist you with writing and submitting articles.
7. Don’t cheat
If you up heaps of random keywords, have repetition of content, or try to hide links, Google can penalise you badly.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has become an important element in web development. And yet, few clients know how it actually works.
SEO became popular due to the near total dominance of search engines in finding websites online. Search engines have become the new yellow pages. If you’re not listed on the first few pages of a search, you might as well not exist.
Search engines have become increasingly sophisticated over time in order to avoid abuse by webmasters wishing to spam links and fill their site with irrelevant keywords.
Nowadays, they obtain more accurate results because they reward sites that are well coded with the proper combination of XHTML and CSS, are regularly updated with original content, and linked to by other highly ranked sites.
How does it work?
It’s fairly straightforward. To get good search results, your website needs to be professionally coded using modern development techniques, have plenty of original and relevant content, and be linked to by well ranked sites.
The first part of SEO is structural, namely how well the site is coded and what formal elements are in place to make it ‘search engine friendly’. Each of our websites conforms to the latest W3C guidelines, using a sound menu structure and a correct combination of XHTML and CSS.
The second relates to the content on the site. Search engines identify keywords directly from the content and not just from the “meta tags”, as before. The regular updating of content will further improve a website’s ranking, and can be worth considering if budget allows.
The third aspect of SEO relates to inbound links, that is, the number of high-traffic sites that contain a link to your website. This side of SEO has produced a whole new industry with a multitude of directory sites charging big money for adding links. Some sites still allow for free links however, and most industry specific sites will agree to a ‘link exchange’.
SEO professionals can then improve a website’s rankings though writing and submitting articles to large article directories (linkbaiting), obtaining inbound links from a range of established link directories, and analysing your target market to develop search keyword strategies.
So, SEO represents two key elements – the structure and content of the website, and then how that website is marketed.
Does Radar Maker provide SEO?
At Radar Maker, we develop websites to SEO best practices. All our websites are designed with people in mind and then coded to suit search engines.
We can then provide additional marketing services such as copywriting, article writing and submission, and link building strategies which can greatly improve your website’s ranking.
My Future
Radar Maker will shortly be releasing My Future, a free, fully animated and interactive career guidance package for South African schools.
The software was developed in collaboration with a career guidance specialist as a practical response to the severe shortage of career information and guidance in schools. (more…)
Amawele
Radar Maker has just completed a new website for Amawele, an organisation that facilitates the ‘twinning’ of schools in Ireland and South Africa in order to promote a cultural exchange between the two countries.
The new website has a content management system (CMS) both for project coordinators and participating schools, enabling each school to maintain their own blog relating to the linking process. (more…)
New Communities Partnership
We have just completed a new website for New Communities Partnership (NCP), a national network of over 70 ethnic minority organisations in Ireland. Founded in 2003, The New Communities Partnership work to examine issues and address policies that hinder the successful integration of ethnic minorities into Irish society.
NCP required a clean re-design of their existing site with an affordable Content Management System that would allow them to add and edit pages themselves. They also required a means of listing upcoming events, which we provided using an embedded Google Calendar.